TBI S-O-S! Restoring a Sense-Of-Self after Brain Injury and Concussion

What I do, is What I am… and is Who I am.

This past weekend was a busy one. It was busier than I expected, because a project I’ve been working on had a “pre-launch” on Saturday, and I had to join a conference call for a few hours, starting at 8:00… and then I was on-call for the rest of the day.

I also had errands to run, in advance of next week’s Thanksgiving vacation (which actually won’t be much of a vacation, because there will be so much travel, family stuff, and tiring activity). It’ll be good to be away from work, but the change in schedule brings its own stresses.

But all in all, things are good. I know that, even though it’s going to be challenging, I have the tools and the skills and the capacity to handle whatever comes my way. This is a huge change from before. Monumental. And the fact that my last nasty concussion was at Thanksgiving in 2004 (13 years ago), always brings up the reminders of how my life was turned upside-down, starting around this time of year.

I’m managing all the different things I have to “juggle”. Getting errands done in advance. Doing up-front planning for when to travel and what to do along the way to keep from being destroyed by hours and hours in the car. Regular stops are called for. Stretching and exercises by both myself and my spouse. Taking our time, so we don’t suffer too intensely from the whole trip.

I’m actually pretty concerned about the physical effect this trip will have on us. We’re both in king of rough shape, physically. My spouse more than me. And it’s tough, because they’re not very active, to begin with, and that makes it harder for them to recover. Plus, the reactions of our families, when they see just how limited they are with their mobility. People can be both insensitive and cruel and alarmist. What’s needed, most of all, is for people to be strong and positive and supportive. Not despair and think all is lost from what really could be a temporary condition.

Time was, I was pretty crippled, myself. Intense chronic pain that seemed like it would never go away. A state of mind that was defeatist and full of despair. I’m not like that, anymore. And frankly, I think what I did has as much to do with it as anything that I thought or told myself

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I managed to put my life back together… how I managed to restore my Sense-of-Self. I had a lot of help from someone who talked sense into me each week. But I think even more than that, what brought me back was effort and action — consistent effort and action.

Taking action and then giving a lot of thought to the results… and then taking more action… that’s done wonders for restoring my sense of who I am, and getting me on solid ground again. The thing about TBI is that it takes away your sense of who you are — that unconscious, instinctive trust in yourself. And when that goes away, it makes life that much more stressful. Which means that you don’t learn as well as you could under less stressful conditions. And that means your recovery gets delayed. I know mine did. For years.

Because I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t know who I was anymore. And I became unrecognizable to the people who used to be my friends.

But as I just got on with my life (kicking and screaming, the whole way), and I worked through one situation after another, I came to recognize myself again. Through repetition. Through keeping to a schedule. Through regulating myself with checklists and strategies that made repeat experiences possible and re-taught me to recognize myself.

I think rehab people vastly under-estimate the impact of that loss. And as a consequence, they (and we) lose valuable ground, without realizing it. Without ever understanding why.

After TBI, you have to re-discover who you are. People do that in different ways. For me, it came through action. Taking action. Again and again. And soldiering through the failures and frustrations to build up a better understanding of who I was, what I was about, and why things mattered to me.

Action, in addition to thought, brought me back.

But sometimes we get it backwards. I know I did, for years, up until the post-TBI symptoms were so bad, my life was about to implode. People still do it. All the time.

I was talking with a friend yesterday who’s been having a lot of trouble getting their life together. They said they wanted to understand the underlying nature of their confusion and lack of direction, in order to go in the right direction. I suggested that rather than trying to figure out the mental background of it, they simply move forward, take action, and do the things they want to do. If they wait around to understand what’s going on, they may never get started making the concrete, substantive changes they need to make, to get their life in order.

They’re in a state of “analysis paralysis”, in any case, so just about anything they do to move forward will be step in the right direction.

I’m not sure if that sank in with them, or even if it made any sense. But they seemed to get it.

And I hope they can take the steps they need to take.

Anyway, that’s on them. I have my own life to worry about. But I’m too busy doing things to worry much, these days.

Life awaits.

Onward.

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Author: brokenbrilliant

I am a long-term multiple (mild) Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI or TBI) survivor who experienced assaults, falls, car accidents, sports-related injuries in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. My last mild TBI was in 2004, but it was definitely the worst of the lot.
I never received medical treatment for my injuries, some of which were sports injuries (and you have to get back in the game!), but I have been living very successfully with cognitive/behavioral (social, emotional, functional) symptoms and complications since I was a young kid. I’ve done it so well, in fact, that virtually nobody knows that I sustained those injuries… and the folks who do know, haven’t fully realized just how it’s impacted my life.
It has impacted my life, however. In serious and debilitating ways. I’m coming out from behind the shields I’ve put up, in hopes of successfully addressing my own (invisible) challenges and helping others to see that sustaining a TBI is not the end of the world, and they can, in fact, live happy, fulfilled, productive lives in spite of it all.
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